This is astonishing. What the PM really needs to say, but he can’t for obvious reasons, is that families of people who die through inexperience, insufficient training, bad planning or bad luck don’t have the luxury of rejecting an apology they never should have asked for in the first place.

I do feel very sorry for these people, but no more than I feel sorry for the dozens of other people who’re electrocuted every year in industrial accidents, or who otherwise fall prey to mishap or mistakes. It happens. A lot. These deaths are not the fault of any minister – they just happened to occur in a badly-regulated industry that the guv had the poor judgment to get involved with.

Is every industrial accident on a federally-funded road project the fault of the minister? How about the accidents that occur on that road? Usually, the blame lies with the person whose decisions caused the outcome – e.g. the driver or the project foreman/manager. So much for all that personal responsibility stuff we used to hear about.

on what is actually happening with the Arctic Sea Ice. Even when people like Watts say that the ice is recovering it is in fact not. The area of sea ice is on par with previous years but it is much thinner than previously recorded. Interesting stuff.

I’m not sure if many of these posters have even bothered to think about what they’re posting, or whether they’re just applying some semi-creative eliza-algorithm to responding in whatever way they feel they’re expected to.

Andrew’s right – this was graffiti. It went the way of graffiti. That’s the point. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t BE a graffiti artist, he’d be a poster artist. But that’s not quite the same thing as deciding that banksy’s a talentless bozo who just defaces stuff – a quick skim over the things that he’s done shows he’s not the ordinary graffiti artist. He’s a clever graphic artist who’s decided to use graffiti as his medium. His stuff is meant to be seen in context, and quite a bit of it is very clever. A few of these posters overshoot just a WEE bit in their eagerness to Be Just Like Andrew.

Apparently the government is going to enforce plain label packaging on tobacco products from 2012. Not being a smoker, it’s not going to affect me one way or the other. But it was discussed by Fran Kelly this morning on Radio National.

Who did she get on the show to interview about it? The relevant minister? A member of the health advisory committee that made the recommendation? No. She had on some shill from the IPA (THE IPA!!!) who, with no evidence at all said it was going to cost squillions of dollars in compensation to the tobacco companies for God knows what.

Kelly did have the grace to acknowledge that a professor of law at Sydney Uni said claims for compensation were bollocks and she did very timidly ask the IPA guy about their funding from tobacco companies but why on Earth did she give the IPA who know stuff all about anything so much oxygen? Why didn’t she interview the guy from Sydney Uni?

philipb20, they did have a separate segment later in the morning with Rob Moodie of the National Preventative Health Taskforce. She put some of Tim Wilson’s arguments to him. But there was a big gap between them and people don’t necessarily get to catch the entire program.

For those who are interested, you can listen to the segments with Wilson and Moodie.

One line from Bolt and then he lifts paragraphs from another right winger at the Oz.

Absolutely no discussion or analysis from Bolt.

Laziness and a hint of desperation is the best description for such shoddy valueless work.

And what a ad hom, ridiculously fictional piece of work from Sheridan. A baseless and completely rhetorical attack on the Phantom Left and academia. He pointedly commenced with a reference to a fictional work and then proceeds to invent his own fiction.

The Oz has to be seen to be believe these days. Every day they wheel out someone with a historical axe to grind with Rudd. Clearly Rudd slept with a lot of wives some time ago. It’s time the Oz rebadged itself as the Coalition Chronichler.

When confronted regarding the commentary below, here’s how Bolt responded:

Once again we see the calibre of person and comment that Andrew Bolt courts here.

Calling it racism isn’t correct.

This place stinks of elitist, self-righteous superiority and a complete lack of humanity, emapthy and a willingness to look beyond self-interest and shallow opinon.

Divisive, destructive hatred is what you cultivate, Andrew.

Just the non-political version of Hanson.

Conservatism or Right-Wing - call it what you will - to me it’s just ugly.

ANDREW REPLIES: That’s the abuse; now where’s the argument to justify such a damning conclusion? Believe me, if there was a valid one. I’d instantly retract what I’d written.

—————————————- {Edit – just adding a line to clarify where Andrew’s response ends and others’ comments resume – Tobby}

Can you please provide me with a list of all the things I can do that are a great disrespect… yet still legal… I want to do them ALL. With a mile wide smile on my face.

Perhaps they could offset their trip costs picking up a few spare parts from the many abandoned vehicles that dot the country side.

And we’re told of the Aboriginals’ love of land ....

What crap !!!

Wait until they claim driving over Sydney harbour Bridge is ‘disrespecting’ their ‘culture’ too. Someone will be sure to try it.And it may even work. Of course you will have to pay those whose tribal lands it is -if you want to cross.

Let’s face it - there is nothing sacred about that rock - and there never has been.

The aboriginals who happen to exist on government money who hang around the rock - don’t own it - and neither did their ancestors.

The ‘white’ politicians who insist on pandering to this insanity should be well...you know.

If necessary, Ayers Rock should have a barrier placed around it it to stop passing aborigines claiming they own it

Been there, done that. I wouldn’t have bothered if the climb wasn’t open. Sick to death of this made-up sacred bullshit.

Just build an escalator to the top to save the heart attacks.

A revolving restaurant would be nice too. I’m serious.

You know what an advanced western civilisation does when it is blessed with an interesting monolith in the outback?

It makes it amenable to visitors of all health backgrounds, and from all over the world, and it makes millions for the local economy!

Or, at least it would if the people running this country weren’t pathetic.

Cultural significance my arse. A culture is what you have when you’re not having a civilisation.

When you’ve had an entire mineral rich continent to yourselves, for 40,000 years undisturbed, and you’ve failed to even invent the wheel, agriculture or the written word, you haven’t earned the right to ban the high achievers from your red rock in the desert.

Sitting on the biggest deposits of iron on earth but never getting out of the stone-age.

Surrounded by the longest coastline on earth and no idea of navigation.

Spending millenia staring into crystal clear night skies but never understanding the moon and stars for what they might be.

How lucky these arrivals (dregs on the run?) from SE Asia were, that the Maoris didn’t get to the east coast ahead of James Cook!!

We gave them a 40,000 year head start, and they just did what they do best, sat around and did nothing with it. My people, the indigenous peoples of the British Isles, came along and tamed an entire continent in the space of three generations.

why not put a chairlift on it

I can’t believe you have to pay to climb it, that’s disgusting. That’s like charging me to walk in my own country. All the money just gets spent on grog anyway.

Can we hollow out the Rock and use it as
a secret missile base?

Well from bawling about plastic bags to whales to global warming catastrophe, you know anything coming from Garret is rubbish. He should be cited for verbal pollution and mental vacuousness let alone commenting on Uluru.
There is not one valid reason for his scaremongering.
By the sound of it, a bulldozer might be a very good piece of equipment in the area to increase tourism.

I’ve seen it, at sunrise and sunset, and climbed it, and it is beautiful, so for all I care they can close it down. Selfish attitude I know, but I’m just sick of this lot carrying on like pork chops over their dreamtime sacredness, most of whom would have no clue about any of it, or want to know anything about it, except when money is in the offing.

Why don’t we give the aborigines an ‘ownership’ stake in something they really care about, like say Fosters group.

Or how about this, if they leave us alone and let us climb the various rocks that adorn our great nation, we will make them a deal, they’ll get free houses, food, grog and smokes, and discretionary money for drugs, for life, and free healthcare.

Oh, wait, we already do that.

Guess we could buy them a car. Or give them free reign to molest their kids.

Brc… at gunpoint you say.... I think a spear is more their speed.

Or not their speed, more like their epoch.

Why should we care about the ‘environment’ around Ayer’s rock.

The aborgines don’t care about the hundreds of thousands of trees that have to be cut down to be turned into Centrelink letters for them.

Having been involved with some of these scammers over the years, I think I can safely say that this is leading up to some more “funding” from our very gullible Government. So watch this space. We should rename the whole process of aboriginal funding as “Aboriginal Incorporated” as it has become an industry usually run by Public Servants so called,or aboriginal activists hell bent on maintaining the Company and the funds that it provides.

I went to Ayers Rock about 7 years ago because I realised one day we’d lose the right to climb it. I went on a tour and the aboriginal guide took great pains in explaining why we shouldn’t climb the Rock. At the end of the tour she asked if anyone had any questions. There was only one and it was from me. I asked “Where does the climb start?” I wanted to make the point: I am an Australian. You are no better than me because of your race.

I wouldn’t be caught dead VOLUNTARILY handing money to Aborigines.

They take enough from me and my family under threat of an ATO prison sentence as it is.

Good on you for thinking ahead though Peter and exercising your right before you lose it, because we will lose it. Just like we lost so many other rights at the hands of the socialists.

It was we Europeans found this great big rock in the middle of nowhere.

Finders keepers, losers weepers.

The indigenous peoples of the British Isles and their descendants who established an advanced western civilisation on this continent, and discovered it for science and geography, are the only people who should be dictating terms here.

This is a nation founded on the rule of law. The democratically elected government makes the law, not some band of self appointed Aborigine dictators.

You think it’s unacceptable that people don’t use the nonexistent toilets on Ayer’s Rock huh?

Can you please direct me to the evidence that the Aborigines invented plumbing and even had toilets before White Man came?

The Aborgines clearly did their business by dropping where they stood, for 40,000 years. It’s a bit rich to suddenly claim what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander.

That said, build some toilets on the thing. I have a hunch there might be some unemployed people who could empty the thunderbox on top of the rock.

The aborigines who claim to own the rock don’t need to develop it - they are getting all their money from the Government in handouts - why work for it?

However they can have their 15 minutes of fame by being spoilers and stopping people climbing it. As for aboriginal culture - its a myth. Lets take note of the first fleet’s diarists - they had no bias or axe to grind and merely reported what they saw - no real culture at all - it has basically been madeup since then in an attempt to give the aborigines some self -respect. It has failed, they are just spoilers.

I recall going to a aboriginal culture show where the aborigines were to perform an ‘ancient’ coroboree dance - the only trouble was I saw the young fellows making it up a few minutes before going on!

I’d be quite happy to give the Aborigines the entire northern territory and put up a giant concrete razor wire fence, so long as we were freed from the tax burden they foist on us.

If ‘traditional ownership’ is so hot, traditional culture, so worthwhile… why do these people not live as hunter gatherers to this day?

They are the ones who should be celebrating our culture. We gave them about three million useful modern inventions they now do not wish to live without.

Can we ban drunk aboriginals as well? They don’t look sacred to me.

If we don’t close Uluru to tourists pretty soon, then there’s the high risk of even more Aboriginals making enough money to drag themselves away from addiction to government handouts.

Seems you’ve got your world wide web wires crossed here. This blog has never really delved into discussions about the CPRS, ETS, etc. so there’s no real need to fire up that conversation now. And even if this was a forum to discuss such issues, which it’s definitely not, there’s been nothing of note happen that’s worthy of discussion. Plus, if there was anything worthy of discussion, it would probably be because of Abbott, News Limited, Bolt or Christian fundamentalists. Probably all of them together. But regardless, there’s nothing really to talk about so don’t even worry about it.

To avoid future embarrassment, also try to avoid subjects such as refugees, childcare, whaling, home insulation, green loans, indigenous housing or government accountability and stick to the new, hot and relevant topic of anonymous comments posted on the Bolt blog. That way, you’ll be able to display your prowess as an obvjective thinker, rather than just a mindless supporter of a lousy government.

Haven’t heard it yet, but I suspect that sometimes these decisions are determined by who answers the phone

The responses to a fairly obvious decision about packaging (I’ve wondered for years why they haven’t done this) are actually a bit funny. How anyone can call this a “draconian anti-smoking law” is beyond me.

Obviously, the original indigenous peoples of the British Isles: the pre-Celtic peoples who were forced out by the invading Celtic British and Goidelic Celts, who were conquered or pushed back by the invading Romans, and then again by the invading Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who were pushed back and raided by the Norse and along with the Norse were conquered by the Normans, who were Norsemen who had settled in France, and, um, yeah.

NicM @1
Sorry I have come to this late, Andrew is just following the Rush/RNC line, maybe someone should point out to him that the Presidents made his call to young people and women as well as African Americans and Latinos or are all young people and women a different race? The other point is that GW Bush didn’t need to make a call to White Men to vote for him because they allready did.

Congrats on your promotion to PP’s Minister Of What We Can And Cannot Discuss.

I promise to check with you in the future to see if my posts meet your approval but in the meantime forgive me for being reminded of Confessions confidently and most emphatically insisting: “THERE WILL BE AN ETS”.

Right wing columnist, Miranda Devine, on their ABC Radio National program ‘Big Ideas’ – as part of a broadcast of a seminar held by the Liberal Party front organisation, the Centre for Independent Studies.

My point, perhaps clumsily expressed, is that the silence on the death of the ETS is extraordinary. For months global warming and the ETS dominated conversation here – and now, with this massive announcement, nothing. Not a peep.

Either, all that commentary in favour of immediate action on climate change covered in these pages was meaningless hot wind with no conviction behind it, or, there’s silent disbelief that Rudd is actually the one-dimensional politician that most here hoped he wasn’t.

If this is truly a home of progressive thinking, where is the outrage at the lack of action on climate change, where’s the disgust at the neglect of refugees wanting to come to Australia and mistreatment of those here? Where are the demands for promises to be kept on indigenous health, housing and education?

At least the conservative side of the spectrum had the courage of their conviction and necked the leaders that didn’t properly represent their values. Judging by the noise level of protest on this site, Rudd’s got the blessing to continue on the current course. Gutsy stuff, Comrades.

You can blame the Liberals, their media cheer squad and the Greens for failure to act on climate change in Rudd’s first term. Rudd is right to put the issue on the backburner until after the election because the current Senate won’t pass his mandated legislative agenda and so there is no point pursuing it at this point.

When the government wins a 2nd term and has a more friendly Senate we will see action on climate change. In the meantime you, pedro and your beloved coalition should be perplexed because with the absence of the CPRS from the budget forward estimates, and the upswing from mining inputs, your debt and deficit scare tactics suddenly took a sharp turn towards no-man’s-land.

Pedro
Interesting that some complain about the reporting of “off the record” conversations but are gleeful at this, no hypocrisy on your side of politics.
The sad truth is that this should never have been released, I think Sky might find all the UK leaders will be wary of talking to Sky

And Pedro this is a storm in a teacup, and if Brown’s government falls it won’t be over rubbish like this. Besides it’s not like he was insulting someone who had worked to get justice for others at the cost of his own health, no he is nothing like the current leader of the Liberals here.

Pedro
Not even remotly the same, Helicopter taken video was taken as part of a war that we are paying for and should have been released (upon request). The Brown comments were recorded by accident and what public interest does it serve other than to show he calls a spade a spade. I like him more for this.
And you haven’t anwered how this is worse than Abbott’s comments on Bernie Banton last election ?

Having heard the audio, I’m actually a bit surprised that it’s the “bigoted woman” part that’s getting ALL the attention. Sure, that’s rude – but the rest of it is a insight to how public “meet and greet” events work that’s straight from “The Hollowmen”, or perhaps more appropriately “The Thick Of It”.

“That was a disaster … you just should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? … Sue, I think. It was just ridiculous. ” (from AM transcript)

Confessions @ 29, It’s not relevant who’s to blame in holding up the ETS, it’s the Government’s responsibility to push through the things they truly believe in. We were told by Rudd that this was the greatest moral challenge of our time and that hesitation would be disastrous. This delay shows him to be a coward or a liar, or both.

“When the government wins a 2nd term and has a more friendly Senate we will see action on climate change. In the meantime you, pedro and your beloved coalition should be perplexed because with the absence of the CPRS from the budget forward estimates, and the upswing from mining inputs, your debt and deficit scare tactics suddenly took a sharp turn towards no-man’s-land.”

Yeah, and when Pluto aligns with the second moon of Jupiter and Neptune, Rudd will pull out his tough but humane asylum seeker policy. (I recall you claiming that AS wouldn’t be an election issue too. Nice strike rate so far).

He’s all talk. If he wasn’t, he’d have the next election as a DD on the ETS and be assured of it passing.

And RobJ, do as you’re told (@ 36). No engaging the enemy, even if it is light-hearted banter with a long-time contrib.

As much as it is clear that Pedro has decided to simply troll this site, she has a point in relation to the Brown video.

It is silly to suggest that the media should have sat on it instead of broadcasting it. He is vying for re-election as the PM and any information relevant to the public’s decision in that regard should be fair game.

A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices…
Which when considered is not necessarily bad at all (provided that they agree with me).
The thing that shits me though is that some idiot cries fouls when a spade is called a spade. It is the truth that hurts most and the Australia that I grew up in used to be proud of its peoples open and forthright manner of speech. Now we get tossers who cry foul even when it happens on foreign soil!!!

And I suspect that the reason behind it is simply that the individual involved is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices against the left (or what they perceive comes from the left).
I bet that irony thing burns eh pedro?

Confessions @ 29, It’s not relevant who’s to blame in holding up the ETS, it’s the Government’s responsibility to push through the things they truly believe in. We were told by Rudd that this was the greatest moral challenge of our time and that hesitation would be disastrous. This delay shows him to be a coward or a liar, or both.

Spare me the Dennis Shanahan history rewrite. The government had a deal with the opposition who then, at the provocation of the Minchinite Minority, proceeded to eat their own leadership in order to install one of their own as leader ahead of the Senate vote.

With Fielding as a de facto coalition denialist, and with the Greens refusing to vote for the bill, there is no point in the government pursuing the legislation with the current Senate a third time.

And please answer my question about who this mystery conviction politician you refer to on the conservative side of politics. Because you and I both know it isn’t the weathervane Abbott.

The government has reportedly decided to drop the fundie filter. As happy as I am about that, that really is hypocracy from Rudd, who told us only weeks ago that (wtte) the government made no apologies for wanting to be tough against child porn – not that the filter was ever going to stop access to it in the first place.

In my view Conroy is the worst performing government minister. I have no confidence in his ability to implement the broadband initiative. Perhaps after the election there will be a reshuffle and he will be moved to a lesser portfolio, or one that could weather a few stuff ups without too much fuss.

Or by “push through”, do you mean the sort of pork barreling that lubricates the US congress? They “push” lots of things through – often bad.

Politically, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing – it’s a big change and deserves to attract a reasonable amount of support to get passed. Although the greens really have covered themselves in stupid over this. Whatever happened to “the art of the possible”? They just held up a piece of legislation that would have had international impact, and they should be smart enough to realise that (why do they think that monckton show was down here campaigning?). They blew it. They won’t get their preferred targets any time soon – and even the ones that were on offer are now at least 3 years more distant. Nice work guys – here’s a piece of rope, now show us what you can do.

Every now and then, it is interesting to see how the sausages get made.

I would like to express my sympathy for Mr. Bolt. He has a dilemma. On one hand he is pleased that Tony Abbott want to reduce immigration. But he is up set that Abbott is {Snip – we can’t say that – Dave}

Now the Govt has broken many promises, I’d be happy if they reneged on their promise to pump $100s of millions of tax payers money to the richest schools in the nation. To those who want to pull their kid’s out of the state system because for some reason they believe that there kids deserve better than the rest, fine, but don’t do it with my money. I feel the same about the private health rebate, why should I subsidise the likes millionaires to have better health care than me?

“They just held up a piece of legislation that would have had international impact,..”

Sorry Matthew, but you can’t be serious — what international impact would the introduction of an ETS in Australia have, besides of course crippling the ability of our producers to compete with international companies who have no such scheme adding to their production costs ?